


# 6 In each other clothes

by 221_french_bee



Series: 30 Days OTP Challenge [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Hurt Sherlock, M/M, Romance, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-13 10:21:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11183100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221_french_bee/pseuds/221_french_bee
Summary: When Sherlock is injured on a case, John is forced to face the reality of how much he could have lost. Or how a simple blue dressing gown can make our good doctor cry.





	# 6 In each other clothes

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all :)  
> Summer is upon us, and I think it calls for some some angst with happy ending, don't you think?  
> Anyways, this chapter hasn't been beta-read, so please let me know if I made any mistakes. English is not my first language, I'm learning every day.

**# 6 In each other clothes**

John practically stumbles of exhaustion when he enters the flat. His scared shoulder is crying in pain; he is thirsty and a he has a throbbing headache. Through the curtains the sky is pink and purple, a new day already starting, ending a night of nightmare.

Only this morning, Sherlock and John had been forced to get up when Lestrade had sent them a message regarding the killer they had been looking for for weeks. The consulting detective was already putting some trousers and yelling at his phone when John had emerged, his body tangled in their sheets, still groggy by a too short night.

That killer has kept them both awake for weeks now, and if John had grabbed some hours of sleep every now or then, he was worried about Sherlock's sleeping pattern.  
He had coerced the detective to at least lean on his side of the bed the night before, rather than let him stay in his chair while he immersed himself in his Mind Palace. That way, John was sure that his lover's body was recovering a little, even if his mind stayed awake.

It had been a 20 minute cab's ride to go to the crime scene, an abandoned warehouse in the dock area. God help them, it was a bloody mess. Literally. There was blood everywhere, the body barely human anymore, the smell awful and acrid.

To police had been called early on the scene, so there was still a lot of evidence, who helped Sherlock to deduce that the killer, as the victim, was a dock worker, employed on the nearby area.  
It has been a wild chase as the killer, accustomed to the area, had tried to sown them in the maze of factories’ alleys. First on his heels, John and Sherlock had chased him, but had underestimated his ingenuity. The killer had hid in a dark corner of a warehouse to set them a trap, witch both of them fallen right into it.  
There has been a fight, then the glint of gun, the echo of a shoot, and Sherlock on the ground, Sherlock and all the blood…

John had reacted in a millisecond. Letting his military training take charge, he disarmed the man and with a twist of arms, knocked him unconscious. He had let his flaccid body fell on the ground, already at Sherlock side.  
Then he remembered yelling, pressing his hand to the wound, calling Sherlock's name, giving orders and screaming for help, an ambulance, anything, anyone.

He had to left Sherlock's side when they reached the hospital, only to be put in the waiting room, as soon as the paramedics had been assured that the blood on his shirt was Sherlock's and not his own.

His mind was numb for a couple of hours, barely noticing when Mycroft arrived and sit at his side, putting a cup of coffee next to his chair. The dark liquid was already cold when Greg came and went, talking lightly with Mycroft about some deposition that John would have to make at the Yard in a couple of days.  
He was vaguely aware when Mycroft left a moment for calling their parents, before returning to sit on the chair on his side, the doctor's limbs numb with worry.  
They spend hours, silent, both looking at the dizzying white of the walls, surrounded by the dulled sound of the every day's routine of the hospital.

John stood up the moment the surgeon came out of the operating room. He didn't wanted the reassuring words, the sugar coated banality the man usually told to frightened family member. He was a soldier and an army doctor. He wanted to know precisely which arterial had been touched, the depth of the wound, which limbs has not been enough irrigated, during how long. He needed to know in order to calculate the damages, the nature of the therapy, the length of the recovery, the extent of the scar.

The doctor, already dizzy with the long intervention, gave him as much detail as he could though the torrent of questions. But John only became more and more frenzy, pressing the man, at the end without even letting him the time to answer.  
Mycroft finally had to grab his arms to prevent him to harm the surgeon when the man tried to refuse him the access to Sherlock's room. The posh man spoke softly to the surgeon, obviously playing of his influence in the British Government, until the man agreed to let John go to Sherlock's room. Without even a word of thanks, John was out in the hospital hallways.

He had spent the rest of the night at Sherlock side, holding his hand, caressing his dark curls with shivering fingers. The detective's face was as pale as the sheet he leaned on. But he was breathing peacefully, his chest heavily bandaged, the morphine preventing it to hurt and making him sleep.

John spends the night trying to reassure himself. Even if fragmentary, the surgeon's words had been reassuring: the bullet at been traversing, the blood lost had been important but early taken care of, and none of the vital organs had been touched. But Sherlock's exhaustion after nearly 2 weeks refusing sleep and food hadn't helped his case. John fought between anger and relief until the nurse send him home, with the promise to call him if anything happened.

Back at Baker Street, he climbed the stair in silence, unwilling to wake Mrs. Hudson up. He wasn't injured, and Sherlock was unavailable to the word until next morning, so there was no need to worry her.  
He went directly to the bathroom, not bothering to lit the light on his way. The burning hot shower he took left him clean and sleepy. He felt himself slip away, the exhaustion and worries of the day catching him as he entered their bedroom.  
He is toweling his hair on his way to the wardrobe when his eyes fall on their bed.

There, dark blue against the light colors of their bed sheets, carelessly discarded in the hurry of this morning, is Sherlock's blue dressing gown.

John feel his chest constrict. This small token of domesticity suddenly making him realizes what he could have lost today. Not only his best friend, but the man he loves, the man he chose to make his life with. Today, he could have lost the life they made for themselves. All their couple habits, all their games and little jokes, vanished in a second.

He let the towel fall on the ground next to the bed as he moves forward, naked, in the chill air of their bedroom.

And because this day had been really terrible, that he misses his lover more than ever before and he really needs comforting, he put the blue dressing gown on. He shivers when the soft satin play against his naked body as he steps up and curl in their bed.

Then, surrounded by his lover's scent, he let himself cry.


End file.
